Ireland's director of women's rugby says the the decision to withdraw three key players from today's Six Nations squad was taken with the world cup in mind.
Sene Naoupu, Alison Miller and Hannah Tyrrell have all been pulled from the squad for the 12.45pm clash with France.
Instead, they will link up with with the sevens squad for next month’s international tournament in Las Vegas and this will undermine unbeaten Ireland’s drive for a Six Nations title.
But Anthony Eddy insists that the decision was taken with the Women’s World Cup, which will be held in Dublin and Belfast in August, is the main aim.
“There is a rotation system to a degree, this was always on the cards from day one,” explained Eddy, who heads up the IRFU’s women’s rugby programme, speaking on the RTÉ Rugby Podcast.
“We don’t have a lot of depth so we are looking at the the opportunity to provide other players with match-time in the Six Nations.
“Sene and Alison didn’t got to Sydney (for the recent sevens tournament) so they could stay and play those two Six Nations games. Following Sydney we were in a position that we could drop Hannah back into the 15s to be exposed to that level of rugby, which is fantastic.
“This week against the French we have an opportunity to put Kim Flood, who tasted Six Nations success last year, and Louise Galvin, back into the 15s teams. A world cup, or any single game, isn’t won by 15 players.
“A couple of years ago the IRFU took the decision to move the women’s game into the high performance department and treat it as a professional programme.
"We can’t go into a world cup relying on 15 players - we need the depth in our squad if we are to get success.”
We need your consent to load this SoundCloud contentWe use SoundCloud to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The decision to withdraw the players has been criticised, though Eddy says that the IRFU are confident that this is the right course of action.
Ireland squeezed past both Scotland and Italy in their two opening Six Nations games and this weekend they take on the French - a daunting prospect even with a full team.
“It’s nice to win and that’s the most important thing,” said Eddy. “The girls would admit to a bit of frustration over how we’ve played, but we’ve won. We haven’t started the games so well but we have finished them strongly. We need a much better start against the French this weekend.
“The girls have been working hard on playing a bit more of an open game - we don’t want to be just a team that kicks for territory and puts the ball up the jumper and mauls it. We are improving and it’s certainly heading in the right direction with the world cup coming up.
“They’re the defending Six Nations champions so they’ll be tough - they have a very strong forward unit so that will challenge us as well. It’s our first home game so the girls will be looking forward to that.”
Watch Ireland v France live on RTÉ2 from 4.30pm Saturday, listen live on Radio 1 Saturday Sport and follow our live blog on RTÉ Sport Online.
Watch Ireland U20 v France U20 live on RTÉ2 from 8pm Friday and watch Ireland Women v France Women live on RTÉ2 from 12.30pm Sunday. Follow live blogs on RTÉ Sport Online.
Sunday Sport is on-air from 12:40 on RTÉ Radio 1 for full coverage of the women's international.
